


crusader of the night

by allhalethekings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Barista!Derek, M/M, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-01-07
Packaged: 2018-05-12 08:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5660239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allhalethekings/pseuds/allhalethekings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles always comes in like clockwork at seven-thirty in the morning, stands in line with his face solely focused on his phone, mindlessly rubs the sleep out of his eyes every few minutes, orders a large black coffee when he gets to the counter, takes a big gulp as Derek processes the transaction, and then beams at Derek with the light of a thousand suns.</p>
<p>Every morning is the same.</p>
<p>Until one day, it’s not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crusader of the night

Truthfully speaking, it’s not that Derek’s concerned. It’s just that - there’s a pattern.

And he lives in a college town, okay. He’s a barista at one of the most popular coffee shops in that college town. So seeing yet another bumbling college idiot blindly bumping into chairs and tables before their morning coffee fix isn’t exactly unheard of. You might even say it’s a downright given.

But Stiles isn’t every other bumbling college idiot. Stiles is smart, ingenious even, and loud and pretty and kind of beautiful. Wait, no. Scratch pretty and kind of beautiful from the record. He’s just smart and loud. Yes, that’s it - smart and loud. Definitely not pretty or beautiful. Nope.

Anyways, point is, nobody can miss Stiles in a crowd, certainly not in the early morning coffee crowd at House of Grinds, the local coffee shop that Derek owns and works at.

Stiles always comes in like clockwork at seven-thirty in the morning, stands in line with his face solely focused on his phone, mindlessly rubs the sleep out of his eyes every few minutes, orders a large black coffee when he gets to the counter, takes a big gulp as Derek processes the transaction, and then beams at Derek with the light of a thousand suns.

Every morning is the same.

Until one day, it’s not.

The first time Derek notices it, he wants to drag Stiles into the back room and demand who was responsible. See, like every other morning, this morning started out the same. Until Derek caught Stiles doing a full-body yawn and his eyes were immediately drawn to the way his graphic tee rode up, revealing just a peek of pale flesh spattered by a scattering of moles and beautifully contrasted by the dark happy trail that disappeared into his jeans and—

—and an ugly dark purple bruise on his side.

Derek would have missed it completely if he hadn’t seen Stiles wince subtly as though he remembered stretching his body for a yawn would undoubtedly hurt. He glared at the POS system in front of him as he punched in the order of his current customer, his mind racing at who could have hurt Stiles like that. So what if he punches in the drink a little too hard on the system and the screen almost cracks? Whatever.

But he ignores it because well, an injury like that could have happened due to a wealth of different reasons. Maybe Stiles was part of that intramural dodgeball tournament that was so popular on campus every Fall. Maybe he ran into a door, everyone and their mother know how clumsy the moron can be. So yeah, maybe it’s all just innocent. So Derek ignores it.

But then it happens again.

And again.

And again.

So yeah, it’s not that Derek’s concerned _per se_ but—okay, maybe he totally is. There’s some crazy person out there abusing Stiles (it doesn’t even occur to Derek that Stiles might be in an abusive relationship, _oh God_ , until Laura points that out) and he can’t do a damn thing because well, they don’t have the kind of a relationship where Derek can start defending Stiles’s honour. Their relationship is more wild, sarcastic, biting banter that leaves Stiles smirking and Derek glaring (totally out of fondness) mutinously behind him, all the while checking out his pert little butt as he leaves the shop.

“Did you hear what happened last night?” Erica asks, twirling around him. Derek glances at her before handing the customer her change. Thankfully, it’s not very busy today since it’s a civic holiday and classes as well as most offices are closed today so their morning crowd is significantly less.

“What happened?” he asks, moving around her to start grinding the beans for the next batch of coffee. He motions to the pastry case behind her. “If you’re going to stand there and talk, put all the banana loaves out in to the case.”

Erica rolls her eyes at him but starts doing it anyways.

“The Red Fox—,” she barely starts before Derek interrupts her.

“The vigilante?”

“No, the animal. Yes, the vigilante,” Erica huffs. “He totally showed off the cops last night by catching this hard criminal and now the public’s basically going crazy because they’re like how did one random dude just catch this criminal. And the cops can’t say shit because on the one hand, he caught them a known drug dealer but on the other hand, he’s becoming more dangerous, or so they say.”

“You’re surprisingly informed about his doings,” Derek notes. “Something I should know?”

“Yes, I’m secretly a Red Fox groupie. We call ourselves the Kits and our goal is to just be noticed by the Red Fox once and for all and sing ballads about his vigilante ways,” she deadpans. Derek smirks. “I’m just informed, loser.”

“I can fire you for calling me a loser, you know,” Derek reminds her but it only earns him an eye roll. They both know he’d be lost without Erica.

“Anyways, now not only are the dealer’s guys looking for him but the cops have also implied they’ll be arresting him on sight.”

Derek shrugs. “Well, whatever, not our problem. He’s just some idiot running around the city making a mockery of the police department,” he argues, turning back to his coffee.

“Well, if the cops were doing their job, maybe he wouldn’t have to step in,” a voice cuts in from behind them and they turn to see Stiles - a very unimpressed Stiles - glaring at Derek.

Derek coughs awkwardly, thrown at being on the receiving end of Stiles’s glare, before frowning. “He’s a glorified vigilante who doesn’t know what he’s dealing with.” Stiles raises an eyebrow at him and Derek knows there’s going to be an argument because Stiles actually slides his cell phone into his back pocket.

“What.”

“It seems to me that he’s just some kid who discovered he was good at jumping off of building roofs and got lucky a few times by getting to a crime scene before the cops. He has no idea how ugly real crimes can get and what’s going to happen when he gets shot or stabbed or hurt because he couldn’t keep away?” Derek questions, shrugging. “He’s a liability on the city because if anything happens to him, it’ll be on the city.”

“Wow, that is so—,” Stiles starts before clicking his mouth shut. He looks away, brows scrunched in the middle, and crosses his arms across his chest as he does so. He winces slightly when moving his arms and again, Derek catches it. “You don’t even know him, Derek. You have no right to pass judgements on what he’s doing.”

“All I know is that he’s being a child. He’s trying to live out some fantasy that he probably has in his head about being a superhero or something but he’s not,” Derek replies. “What about when he gets hurt, huh? What about his friends, his family, his—“

“What if he doesn’t have any?” Stiles cuts in, eyes snapping back to Derek.

“Family?”

“Yeah, he could be an orphan for all you know,” Stiles argues. His voice cracks ever so lightly when he says it and Derek barely catches the sad flicker in his eye before it’s replaced by another glare.

Derek shrugs. “You’re right. He might be an orphan. But if there’s one thing I know about family is that family isn’t always blood. My personal feelings aside, I’m sure the guy has at least one or two friends who’d miss him and people in this city who would mourn him.”

Stiles falls silent, only stares at Derek with an unreadable look. Finally, he says, “Large coffee black.”

“Stiles—“

“Thank you.” The indifferent tone in his voice and the way Stiles takes a deep breath before straightening his body signals that he’s all but done with this line of conversation so Derek nods, resigned. He grabs a cup, pours it to the top with the lightest roast they have, and hands it back to Stiles. He waves him off when Stiles tries to pay (it’s the least he could do for clearly offending the guy he’s been crushing on for the past year) but Stiles narrows his eyes at him and drops three dollar bills on the counter. “I don’t like charity. Later, Erica.”

“It’s not—“ Derek starts off but it’s no use. Stiles is already out the door. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. Well, that was a clusterfuck of a morning. So much for an easy day ahead. He turns to Erica, about to tell her to pill the espresso machines, but stops short when he sees her looking at him with wide eyes and nibbling on a brownie. “What the hell are you doing?”

She motions towards the space Stiles previously occupied. “That was really entertaining and I didn’t have any popcorn.”

-

The encounter stays with Derek the whole day and he realizes he should have just apologized. Regardless of what he thinks or believes, Stiles clearly empathizes with the vigilante for whatever reason and Derek really shouldn’t have pushed it. So that’s what he resolves to do the next time Stiles comes in - apologize.

Because let’s be real. Between Derek’s “thick judgey brow and permanent bitch face” (thank you, Erica), he could seem terrifying and he “shouldn’t be terrifying cute college juniors whose ass he’d obviously like to climb like a tree” (again, thank you, Erica).

The problem is, Stiles doesn’t come back.

At first, Derek thinks he might just be busy or he might have slept through his alarm but when Stiles doesn’t come in the second and then third mornings, he gets worried. So much so that he almost lets Erica get away with snacking out of the pastry case again.

“Erica,” he hisses, glaring at her. She blinks at him again but keeps chewing on the oat bar.

“Breakfast,” she snipes back. “Anyways, did you hear about the Red Fox?”

“This again?” Derek sighs, rolling his eyes. This time, he doesn’t turn around, keeps facing the cafe of the coffee shop so if Stiles _does_ decide to show up (and rest Derek’s overly concerned mind, goddammit), he can shut up before he says something to make Stiles mad again.

Erica hums. “He got caught in the middle of this turf war in that shady part of town on the other side.”

“So?”

“So, _Derek_ , the dude is totally MIA. The cops swear that he was there because they caught a couple of guys involved in the bust who said he was there but now nobody’s heard from him, not eve his partner.”

“And how do you know this?” Derek inquires, raising a brow at the blonde.

“Well you know how Boyd is part of this low-key hacker group? Turns out, Red Fox’s partner put out an alert asking for help. Him and his partner work with the hacker groups on the reg to figure out what’s happening underground but she said he hasn’t been heard from in a few days and to be on the lookout.”

Derek nods, shrugging noncommittally. He keeps watching the cafe, shoving his hands into his pockets to stop them from twitching.

Morning four without Stiles.

_Fuck_ , he thinks. _What if he found some other coffee shop to go to?_

He snaps out of his thoughts when Erica waves a hand in front of his face. “What,” he scowls.

“Are you daydreaming about Stiles again?”

He glares at Erica, not that it has any effect whatsoever. “Go work and be useful,” he manages to say.

The rest of morning passes relatively easily. Since he opens the shop every morning, Derek’s out of the shop by 2 o’clock in the afternoon and he decides to go straight home. Usually, he’d stop by the grocery store and get his weekly shopping done since it tended to be quite around this time but he hasn’t been sleeping well for the past couple of days and it’s finally catching up to him.

The second he gets to his apartment though, he can tell something’s wrong. The front door is locked but the second he opens it, the hair on his neck stands up. Derek steps into his apartment slowly, almost on his tip toes. He reaches for the baseball bat behind his coat rack, gripping it tightly in his hand, ready to swing. Quietly, he checks the living room. Nothing. Same for the kitchen and his bathroom. That only leaves him with one room - his bedroom. Bat ready in his hand, he inches towards his bedroom and slides the door open just slightly, wincing at the creaking.

Derek peeks in, narrows his eyes at the lump in his bed. There’s never any lumps in his bed. His bed-making skills are unrivalled, thank you. He tries to decide on a coarse of action while he stands there before—

“I know you’re there,” a soft voice calls out.

—that happens.

The voice is hoarse, almost like it’s tired and exhausted, and so painfully familiar.

“Stiles?” Derek asks, lowering the baseball bat and rushing inside. The lump in his bed turns over and yep - it’s Stiles, alright. Except he looks like he got hit by a mack truck. “What the fuck happened to you?”

Instead of replying though, Stiles eyes the bat, raising a brow at him. “Do you even play baseball?”

“I was the shortstop and _captain_ , thank you, of my high school varsity team,” Derek answers, glaring at him. “Now, answer my question. Who the hell did that to you?”

“That wasn’t your question,” comes the snipe.

“ _Stiles_.”

He tries to sit up, wincing as he does so, and Derek moves at once to help him.

“Thanks.”

“Okay, you’re going to tell me what the hell is going on with you right now,” Derek decides. Stiles’s face looks horrible. There are bruises under his right eye, around his temples, and on the corner of his lips, marring his otherwise pale face with dark, ugly colours. Derek touches the side of Stiles’s face, fingers feather light, and turns it aside. Stiles closes his eyes and almost leans into his hand, releasing a quiet sigh. “Stiles, whoever is hurting you, isn’t worth it. Look, I may not know how much you love this person but this isn’t right. They’re abusing you and it’s getting worse and worse. I can help you, okay? I have contacts in the police department, I can help you talk to them and I know they’ll make sure you’re protected when they go arrest the bastard who’s doing this to you.”

Stiles’s eyes fly open at that and he jerks back. “What the fuck are _you_ talking about?”

Derek gets frustrated and he runs a hand down his face. “Stiles, you don’t have to hide it, okay? I’ve been noticing all those bruises on your body and I - I didn’t tell anyone, I promise. Well, I told Laura but I just wanted to make sure you were okay and she told me - look, this isn’t love, okay? Stiles, this is abuse. And you’re one of the funniest and weirdest people I’ve met and you’re really cool. If whoever you’re with doesn’t appreciate you, they’re not worth it. You deserve so much more. You deserve all the best things, Stiles. Not this,” Derek says with determination. He looks at Stiles, eyes fierce and protective.

“Okay, no seriously, what the hell are you on about?” Stiles asks, blinking owlishly at him.

“Your partner! You’re in an abusive relationship, Stiles, and I know it might be hard to admit that because you might be in denia—“

Stiles bursts out laughing. Well, he tries. But his face probably started hurting the second he laughs so really, he just ends up sputtering.

“I’m not in an abusive relationship!”

“Yes, Stiles, you’re just in denial,” Derek explains patiently. It’s okay, Derek will help him with this no matter what it takes.

Stiles gives him a soft smile, folds a hand on top of his. “Derek, I’m the Red Fox.”

This time, Derek blinks at him. “No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I—oh my God! This can go on forever!” Stiles bursts, rolling his eyes. “Derek, I’m the Red Fox. I can prove it.”

Derek gives him an unimpressed look. “Stiles, I’ve seen you in the mornings, okay? You bump into like at least three different pieces of furniture on your way up to the register. You’re not the Red Fox.”

Stiles rolls his eyes again, flicks him on the temple. “Shut up, assface. You try maintaining at least a 3.5GPA and being a crusader of the night at - well - night,” he finishes lamely. “I’m lucky I even make it to the coffee shop.”

“Crusader of the night. What’s your superhuman ability, please enlighten me, Stiles. Could it be your frankly astonishing ability to be a hyperactive spaz or hey, is it the ability to—“

“Maybe your ability should be your oh-so-charming wit. Bringing the villains down by the sheer power of carefully crafted words,” Stiles interrupts, sniping back. Derek snorts.

“Who did this to you?” he asks softly. Stiles looks down, shifting in his place, before looking at him with his beautiful whiskey Bambi eyes.

“Nobody important. And they’ve been dealt with now, anyways.”

“Why did you come here?”

Stiles shrugs, his cheeks flushing a faint red. “They were watching my place and the place that the Banshee and I operate out of after I escaped this morning. Your place is the only other place in the city I know I’d be safe.” He looks away, mumbling the last sentence, but Derek catches it and it makes his heart beat quick and loud in his chest, warmth spreading through him.

“Yeah?”

Stiles smiles, shy. “Yeah.”

“Would you—I mean—you don’t have to, obviously, but if you’re free or something—did you maybe—“ Derek mutters, tripping over himself. He closes his eyes in embarrassment.

“Yeah, I’d love to,” Stiles interrupts, beaming.

They grin at each other like stupid lovestruck idiots before breaking out in laughter almost simultaneously.

“Hey, so I’ve always wondered,” Derek starts, remembering. Stiles looks at him expectantly. “Why the Red Fox?”

Stiles snorts. “I used to have this red hoodie I wore like every day when I was in high school.”

“Mhm, okay, and the Fox part?”

Stiles gives him a cocky smirk. “Because I’m oh-so-foxy, duh.”

“I’m regretting this already,” Derek says, nodding, but laughs when Stiles flicks him on the temple again.

“Liar liar pants on fire,” he sings. Derek looks down, runs his hands up and down his jeans. He does it for a minute before Stiles finally asks, “What are you doing?”

“Nope,” Derek says. “Just checked. My pants are fine so—“

“Oh shut the hell up and kiss me already.”

And Derek does.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up at: [tumblr](http://hales-republic.tumblr.com) // [twitter](http://twitter.com/halesrepublic). 
> 
> Send me prompts, flail with me over Hoechlin's eyes, let's be friends - the whole shebang.


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